DISCOVERING A BUDDING BUDDHIST

I was always spiritual, but when did it begin? I cannot answer, a Buddhist might say in previous lives. What was my education? Maths and booze and no women. No emotion, strangled in adolescence, where we were brought up not to express emotion - it was seen a sign of weakness. Where there any signs then? Religion was the back of a catholic church until 13, when parents opened their eyes and saw a 13-year-old leaving for 10.00 am mass at 10.25 where the church was 15 minutes away. That was the end of my father's mother's influence and the end of my catholic religious practise.

Was that a conscious process? Was there Buddhist awakening there? No way, it was lazy. Probably no friends went so why should he? At 13?? The lid was screwed tight on emotion and therefore awareness. So when was it next? Well university passed in a blur of alcohol and failed sexual expression. The subject became an issue just before the exams but no more than that.

Let's think a bit more about that. These youthful times were always times I rejected. Who was I? Someone for whom one form of expression was bullying. That is my memory but who was I? I passed at school, OK not well, not self-realisingly well, but well enough. That required mind. OK the mind was lazy, it chose maths because it came easy. What about those A level mocks. Somewhere in the 60s when everyone else was getting 30/40, even the people who had always been top.

And what was the teacher's reaction? Surprise? No! the teacher was not surprised but his reaction was incredulity, that he was considered better at maths than these others who were always hard-working and intelligent. OK so there was something there other than that bullying.

But then came the alcohol. University perhaps offered the opportunity to learn, and I learned that I could down a pint in 3 seconds. And if you downed enough of them you were sick. What a waste of the 60s? But this was a powerful addiction, I was an alcoholic. Or was a I just an addict?

And women! Women were the target at the end of the evening after all the booze, a target which thankfully I was never very successful with. How could I be, why would they even look at me in that state? And then the gorgeous Judy, a year later and she had a thing because I was always laughing. And I blew it, because I had never been sober with a beautiful woman.

Ah, I have met so many beautiful women, and ruined it. In that sense I have been lucky but how much is that luck? Is it lucky to go with a beautiful woman who brings all the problems her beauty forces on her in this world of glamour and female exploitation - however that exploitation is covered up now. Her beauty, an object, a trophy, an extra set of clothes, an expression of apparent male superiority. Look at these men carrying their trophies. They are full of attention with their lies, whilst their friends are green with envy. Of what? A body, a beautiful face, large knockers, beautiful legs, maybe even good sex. Why do we treat each other so badly? What about the feelings of that poor woman?

But then, maybe she is saying nice suit, good car, big muscles, good in bed, good salary, maybe he will be faithful for my children.

Why do we treat each other so badly?

So the addiction wasted the 60s, but then I seemed to function as a mental child so perhaps I didn't need the addiction to waste it. Were there times I functioned as a human being? I don't know. Things tell me now that there must have been. This little wisdom people tell me I have now must have had some expression but to who?

*-*-*

Now to Wendy. Cranky, aggressive, ran off at the mouth, but my first recognition as a human being. She had wisdom but her wisdom was too tainted with chaos and experience. If it was to be experienced she had to do it, why?

Somehow she saw in me these things. Mind you, a smirk snorted at the side of his mouth, would she have groomed a Buddhist? I can't answer that although every aspect of her life appeared to say no. What did she see in this drunken fool crawling around the bar in his first suit fooling himself that he was this “consultant”. They were interesting people in that company. Somehow they came together, people who had a bit extra yet were still working for a crust. They came together, and Wendy seeing in me something different made me special for them a little. But I was still a drunk and did no work so moved on.

And I moved to the back of beyond where there was no character, where you were expected to work. And the drink got worse, and the job got worse. And all I remember was looking for fun, and not finding any. And the drink got worse, and the job got worse. And all I remember was looking for fun, and not finding any.

And then my mind stepped in, and performed a crazy act. I wrote an inappropriate office memo, and signed it with my boss's name. Harmless, mostly. Disrespectful to the boss, most certainly misusing his powers. Funny, a little.

Net result, the elbow. Ran back to the parents. Why? No idea. My life was a knee jerk, looking for one bit of fun after another. And how was fun defined - through the bottom of a beer glass. And women. Even less sight of them, as the drink was just crazy.

Here is one example that has just flashed in. It was part of the grubby senseless existence. I lived in North-West London with a friend from work. Why was I his friend? Why did he put up with me? I was drunk, always out getting drunk, crawled back and wrecked the kitchen. I even remember his sitting in his room of an evening playing the guitar the few times I was there because I was watching TV.

Yet I used to go back and visit him after I left. And he seemed to want me to do that, and I even recall he said I was a nice guy. I went to visit one Friday evening, I can't remember anything about it - not that I was any more drunk than usual. The next day I had to go back home, I can't even remember where I was living. I started walking from North-West London, 12 miles from the centre. And I walked, and I went for a drink. And I walked, and I went for a drink. I got a short bus-ride to the North Circular. And I walked, and I went for a drink. I was now in Kilburn High Road. And I walked, and I went for a drink. I was somewhere down Chelsea and Fulham. That was it. Saturday. Fun. Drunk. Desperate. Looking for what? Anything?

So I was crazy at the firm and I am now back with the parents. What did I do? Not drink. After three weeks my mind was jumping put of my skull. What was I doing there? Watching TV. But my mind was going out of my skull. So after three weeks I went back to London, Chiswick, and got some boring computer programming - coding really - job.

And for some reason I started doing yoga. Where did the yoga come from? I think I wasn't drinking. No I was. But not much. I started playing darts for a pub team. I was still going back drunk to a dingy bedsit but the drink wasn't so much in control. And I was doing yoga. What else did I do? I started taking disabled kids out on weekend trips. I decided I wanted to do this, but how? So I was helping kids and doing yoga, and I don't know where that came from. That lasted three months and I was off to East London to work in an assessment centre, full-time working with kids. But the drink was still there, not so heavy but there.

What happened at the assessment centre? Not a great deal. I think I developed caring blurb. I got angry with the superintendent who was ripping the authority off. I remember making friends with some women, well I developed pashes. A pash, a deep infatuation where I would think I was in love. 14-year-old stuff but I had never done it when I was 14. Now I was a bit older, I could talk to women, but I still couldn't start a sexual relationship unless I was drunk and incapable of having one. But I was talking to women.

In Chiswick I had started visiting an Arts Centre run in a squat, an extremely trendy and right-on thing to do. And why was I doing it? Two things. The first was Wendy, she was a lynch-pin in the setup at the Centre, and the second was that somehow from deep inside this repressed drunken haze science fiction stories had been popping out.

Let me talk about my science fiction history, it was not much then - it is not much now. Science fiction was two pulp stories a night from 11.00 pm to 05.00 am when I was at my parents on holiday from university. Apart from one other thing. When I was at school I had a run-in with my English teacher. I had blatantly copied from another student, and the teacher had decided to reduce the other student to tears. All he had done was give me his book to copy from, without realising that I was going to be so stupid as to get caught. This teacher made a real song-and-dance about it, as a teacher now I think his behaviour was reprehensible bordering on the unprofessional, definitely belonging to the school of bullying teacher that needs to be stamped out.

Three years after this I unfortunately still had this teacher for English - I had passed Language and Literature without any desire for reading or writing thanks to this man and this incident. He was doing an English for scientists class, it was token. He asked the class to write a story. I was absent, and was told this and wrote a science-fiction story. He ridiculed it, but others in the class laughed not ridiculed. The story amused some of a class who were there under sufferance.

Anyway back at the Arts centre I was seen as a science fiction writer amongst artists, amongst people who had trained at all the reputed schools. I had found something, some meaning. I was working and used to want a drink. It worried them but it was never much then. Each drink cost me a round of 5 because they were not working, they were struggling artists. This never worried me, I was happy. There was purpose and meaning. I was a writer. I wasn't a drunk looking for fun in the bottom of a glass. There was shape to my life. Yoga. People asked my opinion. More than just Wendy valued what I had to say. They saw perception. On reflection I was so honoured.

But I killed the golden egg a bit. Wendy and I and a couple got very close, but I also got close to the girl. It was strange. She was beautiful, and we did get on well. But it never crossed my mind that it was anything other than good stimulating conversation. Then one person and another started remarking about how close we were. And that became the case. It became fully-fledged when walking through Rotherhithe before it was ruined by the money. It was arty then with all kinds of unusual things happening in warehouses. The walk-and-talk was bonding except for the fact that she was not my woman. After that I wandered around like a love-sick puppy, unconsciously making all kinds of irresponsible comments to her partner.

There was a forlorn scene in my East London flat. I had decided to travel Europe, and made plans to stay in a cottage in Belgium. I wanted to take her with me. She came over to have sex but that didn't interest me as I had this plan to travel with her. When she refused it was a shot, and when she tried love-making I was still shocked but coming out of it I was hit by a painting - Wendy's, it had fallen down. Or it might have fallen on the woman. The result was that nothing happened, she didn't go with me, and thank God for them and my conscience their relationship was still going strong a year later the last time I saw them. That was also the last of the Arts Centre

But I went to Europe. I stayed in this cottage. The cottage was filthy and unused, but idyllic. And I became reclusive. I unintentionally cold-shouldered the friend who was letting it to me so cheaply - again youthful ingratitude. Why did people help me, why were they so good to me? I can't say I ever had any desire to be consciously nasty to them, but there were many times I just didn't think and that nastiness was a result.

A big thing happened to me before I reached the cottage, and that was Carlos Castaneda's Journey to Ixtlan. I started reading the book and was looking at death on my shoulder, coyote images and crows warning me about all kinds of things. But mainly there was the walk. This walk was the first time I went into the Ardennes forest, and I got lost. I did it. I made a conscious decision to walk into the forest and get lost. I was successfully lost. I walked and walked and walked, how far I walked I don't know. Where I walked I don't know. I intentionally did not walk along paths, and then I told myself it is time to go back. So I walked back, it seemed hours. Finally I came upon a road with a sign pointing to where I was going and I was found. The next day I found that the road had taken me out of my way, and I was almost back. I learned trust in myself. Inspired by Castaneda I had relied on myself successfully. This is no wilderness story, sorry, it is tame but it had great meaning to me. I understood the meaning of Path, I was starting on my True Path

With Castaneda and a book I got hold of from the British Council library, I just sat in my cottage and wrote and wrote whatever came out of my head. It was not literary writing but more philosophical. What did I think of this and that? I laughed at Black Rod. I was a starving writer writing. And stuff just came out and came out and came out. Nothing ever came of it except the release, I carried the papers for years but I don't think it was creative. I don't think I'm a creative writer. I rounded this off with a few days in Paris, and then went to West London.

Does this sound like a Buddhist to you?

As I said, the East London job became a West London full-time position, and I began to develop more relationships with people including women - meaningful. But never sex. There was much talking late into the night around the drink, but the drink was not really a problem. We were developing relationships around it, although I can remember times when the drink was too present. It was a fond time, a good time. These were the first kids I remember - Doris Crowbait, how can I possibly call a care kid that but she had settled into a nice kids' home and I think she was going somewhere! And the houseparents were good, and good friends at the time. Yes, it was a fond year. I had purpose, meaning, but it was not enough. And I didn't have a woman, and it was always on my mind. But I had good relationships with women, and I met Wendy still and she helped.

I decided this time I was going to travel the world, so after a year in West London I got on a boat with a woman, a woman I hoped would get somewhere. We reached a youth hostel part way down the Normandy coast. And we had some lovely times walking and talking. And what did I do? Nothing. I remember lying on the side of a hill looking up at her while she was spliffing, and I am sure I could have done something but I didn't. Afterwards I said to myself why was I so unlucky?

I think that “bad luck” is some protection inside me, why I never used to take the opportunities that were offered me. There weren't many chances but I didn't take them. Why? I always used to talk about wanting them but I never took them. I could always argue shyness, but like I say to kids if they are shy to answer it is because they don't want to learn enough. Why was it a protection? Well I am 50, I have never married, and I love women. It was only by the time I was 30 that I made any decision that said I didn't want to marry or live with a woman. I think I was lucky because if I had got into a relationship with one of these earlier women I would not have coped, married and ended up where?

That holiday had an unlucky or fortuitous end depending on which way you look at it. My friend left after a few days, and I planned to move on. The next day my money had gone. I think I dropped it in the town, but for the life of me why did I take all my money to town with me. I decided to go back to the UK, and the youth hostel warden let me stay a couple of days and lent me the fare. What a nice man? I can't even remember what he looked like, and I can't even be sure that I sent him the money.

These things are so annoying. I am proud to pay my way, although money is not that important. It is an honour thing, many people measure their trust by money. Mind you, I don't spend much and I earn more than I spend. Now it would be the first thing I do to pay the money, then I can't even remember whether I paid him. I was 24.

The fortuitous end was that I decided to be a teacher. I remember the thought process. I enjoyed working with kids but assessment centres were a containment exercise. For children to evolve they needed to be educated, I needed to teach. Because my “world trip” had been cut short I still had time to get a grant - yes there were still grants then, and I started a teacher-training course.

Now things were different. I had meaning - being a teacher, and I was mature. I did a post-graduate certificate, and most of the students had just finished three years. They were mostly 21. Older people at 24 like me were veterans, this is the stupidity of our education system. But in reality I was more of a veteran, I had seen something. I had hit bottom with the drink, and come out of the other side on a Path. And what did I do with it? I played and drank.

The young people there saw someone who knew a bit more. I had done some things, I wasn't this forlorn drunken mess that I had been at uni and in my first job. This gave me confidence. I could chase women and fail, even though I still took courage first. That year seemed to always have something happening but thinking about it there seems very little. I chased the women, and one person said to me “How can I have such deep failings for so many?” I wasn't promiscuous but this wasn't by choice. I had few actual relationships but that didn't seem to matter. It was just meaningless fun that gave me a teaching certificate, and I started teaching in South London with a jaundiced but plausible philosophy “To teach self-realisation within the bounds of the institution concerned.”

Before I start on about the teaching something strange happened one night. There was a teacher who was deeply philosophical or at least he thought he was; to be honest I don't know. We were out drinking and as usual I had too many. We went back to my bedsit and continued talking. I fell asleep. The next day I spoke to him. He started telling me about how his mind had been blown by what I had said until the early hours. I told him I was asleep, I have no recollection and I don't think I had drunk that much. Strange.

At this stage my life was somewhere on track. I had qualified as a teacher but much more importantly I had broken away from the conditioning of state education, of academia. In some ways I was beginning to make decisions, to have some sort of control. But, of course, I was still drinking, and that showed I had little control, yet as the drunk in me always said I held down a job and only hurt myself.

So to teaching. I am a teacher, I know that. I am even beginning to think now that I am a maths teacher, because I had some joy from the maths side of the teaching. But UK teaching is such a mess, it's awful. Why do you let it happen to your kids, to your country?

I began working in South London at a difficult school, and got into a routine. Rushing through the day bleeding my heart about the poor kids, and then rushing down the pub at opening time - they still had them then to drink off the stress and damage my body.

That was the routine for 8 years but it was interspersed with aspects of personal development. However I write it like that because that is how I see I was in retrospect - perhaps I am being overly self-critical. Certainly at the time I was not critical enough of the drinking, and it gradually took over.

So what was the personal development? Well initially it was just school. Work was hard, the students were difficult, and I put additional demands on myself in terms of after school duties, work in the evening etc.

But gradually I got some control of the work, and began to look in additional directions for myself. It started with Tai Chi, or maybe it didn't. Maybe these all started at the same time. I joined the theosophical society, started Tai Chi, and gave up drinking for a year. Then I started drinking again, stopped the theosophical society and gave up Tai Chi.

It didn't quite work like that, but that was the net result. I began doubting the theosophical society. I had learned a great deal from their books and talks, but I was getting wrapped up in these schemes of things. Yoga was the practise but what was the social content of their work. They turned to me because I was teaching in a difficult school. But where were they themselves turning? And I decided that it was too much of a talking shop for me at the time. I am not sure when I stopped doing the Tai Chi but returning to the booze killed it off.

But the most significant time for my development was always the Summer holidays. After taking a week to wind down I would stop drinking and get into some books - occasionally hitting the tipple. It was an escape keeping myself to myself, and only rarely allowing the addiction to rear its ugly head. One Summer was Doris Lessing, in fact no two Summers.

Meanwhile relationships started to develop, but at this stage in my life I had begun to learn about Garbo - I want to be alone. What did these relationships really mean? They were enjoyment. I was not looking for a partner, and although in one case I fell in love they were not permanent.

Falling in love, that can be so wondrous yet it is also so disastrous! Love is a good state of compassion, it can be fulfilling as it takes up your life. But meaning? How did this love work this time? I fell in love when she was living with someone else. I was forlorn but it was the time when triangles were allowed and her partner knew and liked me. What did this do to me? I was a puppy on heat, and it shattered me. We were out of sync, and soon my love waned as hers grew. Then there was a kind of stasis. I would visit and we would fight. I would run away, she would phone and I would go back. Effectively I saw her every three days. When I was with her, my life was high, but it was torment.

Eventually this pointlessness discontinued, and my life was empty for a while. I drifted around, occasionally meeting up with someone but that was it until I was completely clobbered. So what was this love without discipline and permanence? Was love something that only works when you feel good? No there has to be commitment, and I had none. Again I was lucky, if our times had been in sync we might have married, and that would have been imprisonment. Yet I did love her. What do relationships mean?

This period of my life was a kind of consolidation. The early formative years where I was chopping, changing and formulating could not last. I had stabilised with this initial knowing and recognition that I was a teacher. Most significantly at this stage was the year spent as a theosophist because there were many words that I learnt. I attended many meetings, weekend retreats, and even a Summer school. I learnt of many systems, although many people knew far more. I began to study these issues seriously, in a more disciplined fashion, that is significant - there has to be study.

Connected with theosophy was Krishnamurti. When I became less enamoured of theosophy's systems, I became enamoured of K's lack of system. Removing the contents of consciousness sounds so great, and of course at that age I could do it. Yearly trips to his gatherings in the marquee in Brockwood Park, often sitting there sleeping or trying to avoid sleep. I enjoyed his lack of structure, and although for him I am sure there was great discipline, the lack of discipline had great appeal and therefore less learning. His tapes always gave me something until just recently I picked up a book of his and I balked at the freedom. This freedom was mind-blowing, an opening up of the mind, at that instant it was out of control. K is not for me any more.

Meditation had started, but it is difficult to think of when, definitely before I started teaching. At this stage meditation was ill-disciplined and bells and banjos. It would occur usually over the Summers, and would be accompanied by strange visitations. No not figures, but a presence, a presence of life, a heightening of awareness of what was around me. They would come some nights, I would try to hold them and they would go. It was a good feeling and one that I wanted to recreate but ….

However these meditational visits gave me a centring, they brought me back to my True Path, that is obviously significant. But there was no discipline, no continuity. In retrospect I think this erratic progress was based on the booze. I could not booze and meditate - but it was then never an option. I never wanted formal meditation. These experiences were wonderful, I have been so lucky, and it was then enough for me that they came.

Before I move on I want to talk about one group of people who had nothing to do with my personal development, but they are a significant good memory. And that was the kids at my school. I worked hard at that school, and I met as students some of the worst people I would ever want to meet, but gratefully my longing memories of the school are of four wonderful students - Veronica, Donna, Lorraine and Shoran. Thank you girls for meeting and teaching you. Well they're not girls now. It is because of that school I always say the best kids I ever taught were black, and the worst. One of the most heart-rending aspects of teaching there was the results. The good students worked really hard, and their results were never good because the school did not have sufficient academic atmosphere. How do you tell good kids off for weak homework, when half the class don't do it, and others tell you to “f off “ if you ask them for it. Every one of those four girls got results well below what they were capable of, because of the discipline of the school. I hope they have gained success in some way, they deserve it.

Anyway I mentioned above that I was clobbered, and here it is. My life was completely thrown apart because I fell in life with a battered wife, a lonely lovely mixed-up battered wife. And in terms of development this took me right down.

How did I let that happen? I was too blasé, too devil-may-care, and not careful enough to protect myself. I had a kind of feeling that my heart would look after itself, and that if I fell in love it would be with the right person. And I thought this person was right, it was the cosmic bond.

It became a personal mess for all concerned, and I suppose it did help with development but in negative ways. Never again have I looked, or will I look for love as a cosmic bind. Never will I trust the heart in this way. Interestingly in Buddhism the heart-mind is citta - knowingness, and consciousness rests by the heart. The heart is not a symbol of emotions, of sex, although it is the seat of compassion. Was this love I had compassion? No because it created suffering. No it didn't create suffering, but there was suffering. There was already suffering, so much suffering, and then when I came I couldn't do anything about the suffering. And gradually the suffering that I bought into, brought suffering on me, and then I added to the suffering - not just adding to my own suffering. The relationship was a bad decision on my part to start and continue with it. I think I thought it started out of compassion and love but maybe not.

From then on a relationship was a decision. Was it right? Not, did I love her? Compassion can come in a relationship if it is right, but can it come from love? What is this love that it could come from? I wish her and her family well, but sadly I fear that wellness might not be the case.

I suppose when it comes down to it the personal development that came out of this was circumspection, being circumspect about what sex and emotion can take you into. Having said that I wasn't always circumspect after that, I suppose with time I had hoped there might be the right one. Does Buddhism say there is a right one? Or does it ask for duty? If there is a right one why would there be a need for duty? Personally I think the answer is clear.

One corollary of the relationship was that it took me out of London, and in Brighton I found a place that was a half-way house. Not only was it a city with universities, but it had the sea and the Downs. Brighton did not have the excitement of the metropole, but the metropole was not far away - a short ride so long as it was not daily commuting.

During and after the relationship I was drawn into politics, why? Now I don't know but then it seemed right. How are decisions made? Why do we take the steps we take in life? Looking back at this it is not always as if I have been that conscious of what has gone on. I'll talk about that more later.

Is this a story, is it of interest? I don't know but I suppose I am telling a story. What is the story I am telling? I think it is the story of me as a Buddhist, but maybe not? I am not in a lotus, I have talked about meditation but not a great deal, yet somehow I think this is a story of a Buddhist. After all how much do we know of our past lives? Or would want to know?

So Brighton was about politics. OK as a teacher I was supposed to be in a caring profession, a socially-enriching profession, but UK teachers really know that is not their job. I kind of saw politics as a spiritual necessity. How many people in the world would like to develop spiritually but cannot because they have to work, are poor etc. For me the global inequities are political and spiritual issues, I saw it then I see it now.

What did I achieve? Nothing. Was it constructive? I don't know. Was it the right thing to do? I don't know either, I did it. I thought I knew then, boy did I think I knew then. I spent more time on politics than I did on my job, yet I did my job well. Well I think it was well but my boss didn't because he was anti-union. Why? He was autocratic and whimsical - and a bully, all of these qualities require a strong trade union. We weren't but we did hold him back a bit. Despite what the right try to tell you a union is not a strong organisation, it is fundamentally weak. Why? Because it requires people to cooperate, and it requires people to make sacrifices.

Consider the structure of a trade union. A workplace votes for a representative, and that representative negotiates wages and conditions of service. What power does that rep have? S/he has two powers. The first is that in her/his position s/he has access to the management or admin, and as such can present arguments. Therefore they are in a position to be heard; of course they don't have to be listened to - just heard. If you don't follow the argument through, you might think that being heard is a sufficient position. Let me assure you it isn't. Suppose in that position you present common-sense arguments that would be of great benefit to your workplace, does the boss have to listen? No, so that first power is a toothless power. Suppose your colleagues all get together and say that they support the rep, does the boss have to listen? No. A sensible boss would listen because they will get more productivity if they listen, but what if your boss lacks that sense?

Making your boss listen is where the second power comes in. How can you make the boss listen? There is only one way and that is everybody working together to move the boss's position up to and including strike action. Bully bosses know that if they play brinkmanship the union has to back down because people cannot afford not to work. The boss has capital reserves to thwart political action, people's families starve.

For a union to work a family has to be willing to starve, how many issues merit that level of commitment? For some people socialism is that level of commitment, I was one of them. But then I didn't have a family to support, so I was whistling in the wind. Sadly I felt that the unions of the 80s were whistling in the wind, and now they have effectively been beaten or like the teachers' unions turned into teacher protection against unfair dismissal - or on a very few occasions fair dismissal.

It is a great sadness to me that unions have been allowed to die by their members, and hospitals and schools feel that loss. I will discuss later what it is like to work for people for whom there is no employment law, the UK has left the door open for that to happen here.

I think Brighton and its politics was about a sense of community. Initially I had arrived in Brighton as part of a relationship, and I suppose connected with that failure was the desire to find a community. Yet the politics started when I was in the relationship so maybe it was an extension of family into community. It was about wanting to belong as well as wanting to do things for others, yes I think that's it. In London I worked hard at school for the kids, and this notion spilled over into working partially within the black community. I was a bit like these archetypal middle-class whites who try to talk patois, grow dreadlocks and behave as if they are black. No I didn't do that but I was partially in that mould.

So my desire to belong in London became a fringe position on the edge of the black community. This culminated in something excellent, that I was extremely pleased to be the facilitator of - The Young Journal. This magazine started as a typical youth centre project where they wanted the students to express themselves in writing. With some computing skills I setup a workshop using a computer lab to get some kids writing. They were kids from the school so I knew them, and they worked with me on this because they wanted to do it, they trusted me enough to work on black issues, and it was associated with a black youth centre. It started fairly non-descript, youth centre magazines are not that rare.

But then it started to take on a significant ethos of its own. The Youth Centre began to fund it a bit more, and we got in people to design the magazine. The first issue was very interesting on this side of things. I was not a magazine professional so didn't really understand what was needed by the professionals to layout the magazine. We had money to print 500 copies from the youth centre, and I thought everything was going OK. Then when I gave the material to the designer he told me it was not in an appropriate form for the magazine to be designed. As a result 3 days before the magazine was supposed to be printed, I was at home cutting and pasting together a 16 page A3 magazine with pictures and everything else. In those 72 hours I had a total of 8 hours sleep whilst I got everything together, and see that as a major feat in my life. I now understood what the designer wanted, and we worked fine after that.

Because I am writing this as an exploration of self, I have started with the editing but the most important part of the magazine had nothing to do with editing, it was to do with the work of black kids on the magazine and the tremendous help given to those kids by the black community. Black youth magazines tend to orientate towards music, dance and clothes. The youth centre didn't want this, nor did the kids, nor did I. We wanted a creative magazine, a magazine that gave a black perspective that was outside those frameworks of black populist culture. One the first issue was printed and sold - at a loss - but sold, the youth centre higher echelons became interested. They put forward some money, so the magazine was a partially-funded commercial enterprise. More kids got involved and apart from youths as journalists we had story writers, science fiction and others, poets, womanist issues as well as pieces about home countries because the community was so diverse. Those kids deserved every accolade they could be given for producing an erudite youth magazine that I have not seen matched elsewhere.

Sadly my involvement got terminated when love clobbered me and I moved to Brighton, as did my involvement with the community - I wasn't there. But working on the magazine had brought me into contact with people from diverse backgrounds, and my perspective widened. Working with black kids in South London had shown me how oppressed black people were, but I never used the terminology - to be honest I didn't really know what it meant. I don't know now either but I do have a much better understanding, mind you I can never know after all I have never been oppressed. But that work with black people had never been that political, it was equal opportunities. I felt it was necessary to work to redress the balance of years of disadvantage.

But meeting people in the black community, especially Africans, I began to learn to understand more about the political realities of colonialism and colonialism inside the UK. Now Brighton was interesting for this. Brighton is the home of Institute of Development Studies as part of the University of Sussex. Now although my development never actively involved the IDS, I do believe that the political interest in internationalism stemmed from this place. As a consequence of my work on the magazine and Brighton's socio-political environment, my work in politics took on a distinctly international perspective.

So two political forces came together, that of socialism and internationalism. As a socialist for me the only power block lay in grass roots trade unions - to me this is the mass movement. I became involved in the local Trades Council, local TUC, initially representing international interests and then as its secretary. If I was to influence the mass movement to work on international issue I had to show an interest in their real issues. This came to a head for me in a one day conference in which a group of organisations got together to run a conference on International Trade Unionism. I think we had 40 people attend the conference and they were excellent people, but it never ceased to amaze me how many fascinating and interesting people got involved in these issues. The conference was standard format, a group of workshops, and it finished unusually. At that time South Africa was still apartheid, and there was a campaign for a jailed mineworker, Moses Mayekiso. This primarily involved a band of ladies, wives and relatives of jailed South African activists singing and dancing. Anyway we had the usual plenary session, and I can't remember how it ended like this - I should know as I organised it, but they jumped up out of the audience singing and dancing coming to the front of a sedate plenary session and performed a number. We were also organising a benefit for the evening so they were presumably advertising but it was a high-spot for me.

After that my work with the Trades Council and trade unions wound down. One nasty thing happened at school, and this definitely contributed to it but to be honest I am not sure what wound me down. At school the headmaster started to play games to get me in trouble. Teaching is very easy to create problems. You cannot measure teaching output by numbers, a good teacher has scored 617; a number is meaningless. My trade union politics didn't appeal to him, having one of his teachers quoted in a freebie concerning a banned gig to support the Time To Go campaign (a movement examining the issue of the British troops' presence in Ireland). I also had a clash with one of the students whose mother was a governor. Between the three of them they engineered a warning letter describing various things like “concern for my relations with middle-class girls” and an alleged description of a trajectory “as a rubber bullet being fired in Northern Ireland”, neither having any substance at all.

After receiving a warning letter from the head I discussed it with my union official. We then went to the education office to discuss it with personnel. I was fortunate at the time because I had just met the personnel officer over a case concerning a member of the union, and he had been impressed with the way I handled the case. Basically my head had done some groundwork to try to get rid of me by describing my activities to the education office as rabid Trotskyism; that would frighten any true blue Sussexite. I met this personnel officer, and the meeting was pleasant. That avenue of attacking me was blocked off, but they did not have the position to make the head back down, heads have too much power in schools - the power to misuse.

After long discussion with my union people we decided that it would be best if I dropped the union work in the school. This pleased the headmaster so much that one term later he gave me financial award for being a good teacher; what we knew as chocolate boxes at the time.

My final political action lay in the Gulf War. Brighton had a strong Peace movement, and when the US bullied the UN to support their attack of Iraq the movement became very active. I became the trade union representative on the group, and we all worked hard on the campaign. Vigils, demonstrations etc. Does that sound hard? Does it sound effective? But we did it. And for the first 3 months of that year I was doing more outside work than at work, regularly setting the alarm early to mark books because I hadn't gone to bed until nearly 1.00 am either because of meetings, the analysis on TV or midnight vigils. My weekends were taken up with coach organisations for Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square.

When Reagan finally stopped, my health was knocked for 6, and I could do little else but work at school. My political activity wound down, and I began to think about working abroad. I was reaching 40 and I had never lived outside the UK. After the disastrous relationship, after the community relationship had worn me down, I got my act together and went to Botswana.

But I have forgotten such an important event in my life - the drink. During the relationship the drink had taken on even greater importance. This time I became one of the many “husbands” who run to the bar for comfort and escape. I had started politics the second year I arrived in Brighton, the first year the relationship overwhelmed me and I was also working very hard. But the politics was fairly limited to begin with, and this gave me time to drink …. and drink …. and drink.

In retrospect my drinking became significant in the relationship, Saturday morning was always difficult finding out how I had vilified her the night before. This was because the whole relationship was driving me up the wall, and I couldn't keep it bottled up. In the end I took a holiday that made me realise there was not future as it was. And I moved on.

But that process of moving on was heavily liquid. There was an interim period of three weeks whilst I found where to move on and I never drank as much in my life. I couldn't walk in the house without being half cut, and then it was to eat and go to bed. And stumble off to work the next day.

Once I did leave the drink had got a deeper hold. I had a year where I took every opportunity to drink outside of politics. This meant that I was particularly out of it on Fridays after work. I was stuck in a dingy bedsit whilst some money was supposed to have been sorted. Well it did get sorted after a legal letter, and I was able to move.

Moving meant a better place to live, and I was less keen to dive into the sauce. Soon I attended an acupuncturist to try to deal with the regular headaches/migraines. After a few weeks he nobly said to stop coming because the treatments were a waste of time because I was drowning the improvements. I can help you get off it but I can't help you if you don't.

I decided to get off it. Recollecting I didn't have great turmoil in deciding, it just seemed a good idea. Give it a go now before it's too late. Seriously I can't remember the feeling being stronger than that. Further I can't remember having too much difficulty getting off either. Friday night was always the worst. I go in pubs now without a worry but I couldn't then. Friday night was the real habit night, the night to release the school stress.

I ended up going to Tai Chi on Fridays, that was a life-saver. I would get home and then sit at home waiting for the sessions, stressed out, nerves jangling, desperate for a drink. Thankfully I never took one and after a few months everything was OK.

I was still seeing the acupuncturist, and he gave me Chinese herbs. I was boiling twigs in pans and drinking the juice. Fridays I needed a lot of this juice, and I also knocked back the Brewers' Yeast. And thankfully that was the end of the drink.

Except one time three? years later. I was in Cork waiting for a bus. I had always drunk Guinness, and it had been an ambition to try the real stuff in Ireland. I walked in the pub for some food whilst waiting for the boss, and I allowed myself to have one pint. Within 45 minutes I'd had three, and if I hadn't to get the bus that would have been me drunk and perhaps back on it. Never again have I touched it at all, although now I am sure it is not an issue.

So I decided to go to Africa to see some of the world. Whenever I had thought of travelling or VSO, it had always been Africa. I had filled in VSO forms several times, and I think I was rejected once. But I was now going to Africa and when I got there I was rejuvenated. It was as if a straight-jacket had been removed. I felt so refreshed. Why? I don't know why. Freedom was in the air!! Ever since the relationship where I was knocked for 6, play had not been part of my life. Socialist politics is disciplined, balancing egos and party lines was not easy especially when organising events across different groups; it seemed that the line and egos were more important than the event, the political action.

So Africa meant freedom, no responsibility, and I was exploring. So I started playing, well I joined in with some of the play that others were involved in. As usual this was drink, but I never partook. I always used to say if I was drinking I would be dead - not from the booze but from Aids.

African women are so attractive and for a white man in Africa they were a delight and available. Relationships in Africa are much more grounded in the home and finance than UK relationships. In the UK we search for love, or we think we do. Love is everything although what love is we don't know. For many young people love is a culmination of years of wanting love, of a desire to get away from the parents, and all the emotions to do with a relationship especially the joy of sex. This immature scenario leads to marriage and of course divorce when this knee-jerk love starts to run down.

Sadly because of poverty, many women in Africa know that their only source of in come is to find a relationship with a man. And white men are targets, primarily for the money but also because they are likely to treat the women better. I could never decide whether it was because the black women could control the white men more, but certainly the women did not get beaten by white men. So the women searching for the men was paradise for white men who wanted to risk Aids. And it was a risk, having sex is a deadly business in Africa.

Africa had a freedom, and a lack of discipline. There was no responsibility, it was fun. There were three holidays a year you would die for. The money was not good but there was a standard of living that was far better than the greater bucks in the UK. And eventually money took me away. I always say it's because I used to come on holiday and have to sponge off my parents. But that was not it in total, however it does describe the relative costs of living. In the end after a glorious 6 years in Africa I left because I didn't have a house and I didn't have a pension.

But I think Africa was where I started seriously moving to Buddhism, yet I have two things to talk about before I can explain that. My car and my M Ed.

Ah, my car! I had an old bakkie, it was my first car- I had never driven in the UK, the booze I think. The car had given me much trouble but for 6 months it had been fine. A friend from the UK was coming over to see Africa, he wanted to see how South Africa had changed with the elections - it was the end of 95. The day before I was due to meet him in Jo'Burg it broke down. I was driving with my girlfriend in Matobo when suddenly vast amounts of smoke started billowing out of the engine. I braked the car and my girlfriend helpfully rushed off into the bush. I switched the engine off, it was still running. And the smoke was coming out. I lifted the bonnet, and gradually the smoke subsided. Just as the rangers arrived, they had thought the bush was on fire. I think they towed us, I can't remember for sure. Anyway I was told that cleaning out the radiator would do it.

It got it working but then I struggled at 80kph to get home. Seeing someone there I was told that I needed a new fuel pump that I could get in South Africa, so I drove 12 hours at the 80 to get to Jo'Burg to meet my friend at Jan Smuts. The pump was going to take two days so we stayed in Yeovil at the backpackers' - it was still safe then.

Then the awful journey really started. The first day's driving seemed to go OK - we were heading for the garden route. We reached a campsite just East of the Transkei on the coast, Port Edward. We then drove over the Transkei, and at that time it was still considered dangerous though not to us as we didn't know. It was a beautiful drive. Then we reached Port St John's and we had a puncture but couldn't fix it - it was Sunday.

We left Port St John's, had another puncture and we eventually bought a new tyre in Butterworth. And just as we got into King Williams Town smoke was coming out of the engine again. We had given a guy a lift and he rushed off seeing this was disaster journey number one. We reached King Williams Town campsite, and then visited the garages. Sounds like a head gasket, Bug bucks and two days later the head gasket was fixed. And we started to continue to the Garden Route over Ciskei.

After 100km the car stuttered and stopped. We were right in the middle of nowhere, except walking 200 yards we reached a bush mechanic with a tow truck. The big end had gone. He towed us back to KWT. Amusing really no matter how much trouble I had had with the car, the car still looked in better nick than the tow truck. But it got us back to KWT campsite at 20kph all the way.

The next day we were hunting for a garage, but they were all closing for Xmas. The only one open was run by Asians. In Southern Africa I had learnt to be wary of Asian businesses - sorry to be so blunt, but these guys were the only ones open. They told us they could fix the car but they couldn't get the parts until after Xmas. We had no choice. So my friend's Xmas was spent in a campsite in KWT, and it rained and rained and rained so most of that time we were in tents. It was miserable.

Two days after Xmas these guys returned, this time I noticed him wearing a gun. The part wasn't there, some story about flying it up from Port Elizabeth. We listened and saw it was hopeless. We negotiated a rip-off deal to sell the car, hired a car and drove 1700km back to Francistown. That was an experience, we drove through the night - too fast, because we were trying to get out of KWT. We reached Francistown at lunch after leaving KWT at 5.00pm.

Sounds a bad story but nothing exceptional, except that the problems hadn't really started. The Botswana bank would not accept a rand cheque, probably reciprocating South African practise. So I couldn't cash the cheque, and I phoned these guys and asked them to fix the car. Repeated phone calls elicited numerable promises, but nothing substantial. In the end I gave up and contacted the AA in South Africa. They then phoned and phoned, and the garage just put the phone down on them. In the end they said, get a lawyer.

I had been throwing good money after bad, and should have stopped but I didn't. I kept calling the lawyer, and he told me nothing was happening. I soon realised that meant he was doing nothing. Then he phoned me, the police had contacted me saying that the police had found the car in the township, Dimbaza. Someone had phoned the police worried that there was a bomb in the car. The police needed some authorisation to collect the car, I gave it. The garage had said the car was stolen from them when it was being taken to the electricals to be fixed. I think they asked for 5000 rand for engine work but this was waived.

So the lawyer arranged for a garage to collect it, and I gave him instructions to have the car made ready for an AA test prior to trying to sell it in Francistown. The next I hear the car had broken down on the way to the AA test in East London, but the lawyer had kindly paid the garage with my money even though it had broken down. I asked him to take it to a garage to fix it ready for a test, and then refused to pay him. I don't see how a lawyer can pay them with my money when the car was not fixed. Anyway I soon found out. A few months later a policeman came to where I worked and issued me with a summons. I had to pay the money plus a charge within a week or I would be sued.

So I was an AA member, they had recommended the lawyer. The lawyer had in my view not represented me, taken my money, paid a garage bill that shouldn't have been paid, and then sued me for the money. I spoke to the AA about this, and they wouldn't even refuse to recommend the lawyer to anyone else.

So the car went to the garage and was fixed, and that was the end of it. Absolutely not. The car was fixed in a garage in East London so friends and I drove to East London to collect it. The bill was a lot larger than we were told on the phone, but I paid it and drive away. 10km away the car stopped on a hill, we were told that the petrol tank was blocked. It was cleaned and we went, only for the car to stop again. We went back and there was petrol in the water overflow, but this didn't matter, the garage owner said. They said they fixed it again, and we drove only for it to break down 15km from East London. A guy stopped for us and fashioned some part - I can't remember some kind of cover for the radiator. It seemed to go OK, and we drove a few hundred km to reach near Schweizer-Reneke where the engine had finally given up the ghost and had completely seized.

A preacher stopped and helped us, towed us to a garage in Schweizer-Reneke, and then put us up for the night where we heard stories of good and bad aliens and how he and his family travelled to the Kalahari desert as that was a good pint for good aliens to influence the Earth. It was strange to hear this from an Afrikaans pastor, but they were extremely nice people.

The next day we drove back, and I finally gave up. It had cost me way too much. And then a pleasant ending. The garage in Schweizer-Reneke was Kairuz Ford phoned and asked me to come down as he wanted to buy the car for spare parts. So I got some money in the end.

This taught me about South African people, it is not surprising the country is in a mess the way they treat you. To be fair I met some good South Africans on my travels, and they said they were sad about the way I was treated but not totally surprised. That is their country for them. But South Africa is probably the most beautiful country in the world, it is so sad what its people have done.

One other important thing happened in Botswana, and that was that I did an M Ed. It wasn't so much the doing of the M Ed but the way of doing. Social life in Africa revolved around the bars and women, much like anywhere else, but there was no other culture except in the homes and villages. For many ex-pats, running around the camp-sites was their raison-d'etre, and once they had visited them their contract was over and they moved on. I loved Africa, every camp-site was exciting, every night out under those skies was renovating. I learnt to sit and sit and sit, and loved it. So I wanted to stay, and to avoid brain death I started an M Ed by distance learning.